School in Singapore - Teaching Week 1

What an interesting first week in school. Life is hot, sweaty, and fast-paced here in the city. My roommate and I are determined to break our cycle of latte-ness so we leave our dorm in the morning at 6:30 and arrive at West Grove Primary School by 6:55. That's just enough time to grab a 50 cent cup of coffee and look over the timetable for the day before going to morning assembly. This first week here was spent visiting a variety of classrooms and grade-levels in order to learn about how their system works and think about what we would like to try and teach. Let me try and capture my observations in a few bullets:

• Singaporean public school are much larger than ours. There are 1700 students at our elementary school. This means that lower primary classes have about 36 students and upper primary classes 40-44. All students wear uniforms.
• 7:20 to 1:30, with a 30 minute break. Students are in class for about 5 hours with a 30 minute break somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00.
• Singaporean teachers tend to teach one or two subjects to multiple classes. Each group of students belongs to one room and the teachers go to the students. The teachers that we are most closely shadowing both teacher English; one to 5th and 6th grade and the other to 3rd and 6th grade.This means that they teach several different English lessons throughout the day. However, we also shadow one teacher who teaches English, Math, and Science to the same group of 6th graders.
• School is conducted in English. The Singaporean population is a blend of people of Chinese, Malasian, and Indian descent. It was also a British colony for about 140 years. The unifying language between people is English but every student is required to take "Mother Tongue" class where they learn a second language that is prominent in the country. Our school offers Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay but parents may take their children elsewhere if they want them to study a different language.
• The students begin to enter an education track after 6th grade based on the PSLE. The PSLE, or the Primary School Leaving Examination, is a test set and scored by the government that all students must pass in order to move on to secondary school. They score on this examination also determines which type of secondary school they may attend. The top 44% students will score well enough to go on the "Express" track, which is 4 years of secondary school to prepare them for university. The next 44% will enter the "Normal Academic" track of five years of secondary school to prepare them for university. The bottom 12% will enter the "normal technical" track where students will filter more into the technical and applied sciences jobs. After secondary school there are junior colleges and then universities.
• Singapore has both inclusion and Special Needs schools available. For students with diagnosed learning disabilities who perform lower in academic subjects remain in public school where there are resource teachers who work with them throughout the week, possible for the duration of their time in school. There are also aids available to groups of those students during class time. Students who's disabilities severely affect their IQ and social skills attend special schools for students with exceptional needs. However, there are few of these school and there are long waiting lists. The special schools focus on life skills.

There are so many more interesting things to say about being in class and being with students but I think those are a few stand-out differences between what I see in America and what I see in Singapore. Here are a few pictures of my school campus. It's a bright and colorful place, run by the most genuinely caring group of teachers.

Thank you for stopping by! More adventures to come.